IP Surveillance Cameras In Use To Record Innovative Building Project

Constructors of a high technology wastewater treatment plant in the UK have made use of Mobotix cameras to record the building project from the ground up

Mobotix has released details of an installation by SeSys which is recording construction of a new treatment process at Davyhulme Wastewater Treatment Works. The project uses an innovative process to be constructed by Principal Contractor Black & Veatch that has generated a lot of interest and prompted the need to record the development of the project from the ground up.

The United Utilities plant, one of the UK’s largest wastewater treatment works (WwTW), will be able to generate increased electricity from biogas from the new process, some of which will be exported from the site and will become a valuable source of renewable energy for the National Grid. The process will also create a sustainable soil improvement product. To chronicle the upgrade to Davyhulme, Black & Veatch selected SeSys to provide a wireless network, multiple high resolution MOBOTIX M24 cameras linked to a monitoring and recording solution.

The system will record the construction of the new process, the first of its type in the United Utilities area, which will adopt an efficient technique that involves casting a large base to which all process equipment can then be delivered, sometimes already assembled. This method allows many more stages of the build process to take place simultaneously.

The camera system allows United Utilities staff to remotely view the site, which gives interested parties a feel for the scale of the project without needing to visit the site. This can help to reduce journeys, contributing to its position as a sustainable and environmentally responsible company. The cameras will create a detailed record of the 2-year construction project to be retained for future reference as a time-lapse video.

“We selected SeSys based on our work with them on previous projects where they have always delivered quality equipment with the highest levels of professionalism and a good understanding of our organisational requirements,” comments Ian Barker, Chief Engineer - Electrical for Black & Veatch, “The SeSys engineers have configured the MOBOTIX cameras to record high quality images in a system that has proved extremely reliable without requiring lots of unnecessary IT equipment on site, protective housings or heaters.”

The day and night capabilities of the Mobotix cameras also provide an additional layer of security at the site in Manchester that is expected to become operational in late 2012. The Mobotix solution at Davyhulme uses power over Ethernet and is connected by a meshed radio network to reduce cabling with footage stored on a local NAS device. This decentralised concept pioneered by Mobotix reduces the amount of IT equipment needed on site which reduces complexity and increases reliability. Even in the event of a failure of the local NAS device, the cameras can still record for several weeks using internal Flash memory.